Using Surveys to Qualify Leads and Provide Free Instant Evaluations and Assessments

It's great to provide an interactive process like a survey on your website, but what is in it for the person filling out a survey? This is where the instant evaluation and assessment comes in. Most survey software doesn't address the instant evaluation or assessment. It is absolutely important to always think in terms of the visitor experience on your website(s).

If you provide a need instantly, and at no cost, this is the best approach to prospect building. The golden rule on the Internet today is "give something of value away for free" before you pitch your sale. This earns trust, and prospects can get to know and like you in the process. This is a great start for a new relationship.
Relationship selling is very effective and there are many ways to enhance the relationships moving forward. This initial step of providing instant value at no cost can also be used to qualify these prospects for your business. Properly designed, the assessment can tell you exactly what the prospect needs most right now! Top sales people know the value of good qualification methods and that proper qualification can skyrocket your closing ratio and save a tremendous amount of time.

The trick here is to spin the free assessment or evaluation into a valuable and free automated service that provides value and lets your leads know more about what your your product or service does for them.

Capturing the contact information allows you to quickly identify and focus on the most qualified leads first, instead of wasting time on the the least qualified. Scoring systems allow you to identify your prime target customer, including their needs, wants and budgets. Some of the key questions you may get answered that can turn your project into a huge success are listed below.

Note that although we ask these questions to develop surveys for our customers, if you are developing your own survey, you can ask these questions to yourself to help with creating your own instant assessment or evaluation.

1. What Needs Does your Solution Provide to your Customers?
2. How do Customers Currently Solve this Problem?
3. What Types of Solutions are Currently Available?
4. What size Companies are Best Suited for your Solution?
5. What Industries are Best Suited for your Solution?
6. What is the Range of Costs for your Solution?
7. What Type of Position within Target Companies is the Best Candidate for a Decision Maker?
8. Does your Solution Require Evaluation by your Prospects?
9. What is the Return On Investment your Customers can Expect?
10. How Quickly Can your Solution be Implemented?
11. How Much Money can your Customers Save using your Solution?Homework: "What are other important qualifying questions?"

Let's take this question as an example of how to turn questions into instant assessments or evaluations:

"Rate yourself on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is worst and 10 is best on your organizational skills at home and at work?"

It is important to craft the questions in such a way that the answers provide an immediate assessment or evaluation in terms of "they really need to consider [your solutions]" for people that are your qualified needs, or "you seem to be on the right track" for people that are not. In this example, if people are not organized, you can provide information on how they can fix this, and then guide them toward your products and services as an option to facilitate a quicker improvement. If they are well organized, give them a pat on the back and provide useful information on how they can fine-tune these skills, preferably in a way that leads them to your other "organizational fine-tuning" products and services. There are endless opportunities in every question.
When someone fills out these assessments and evaluations, and gets instant gratification and great insights into their situation, you create real value for the people that invest their time into the process. You also get prospects for your business, some more qualified than others. This saves significant time and energy in your efforts to close customers.

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